13.3.4 Evaluating international climate change agreements

This section reviews the literature using the same criteria as in Section 13.2: environmental effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, distributional considerations and institutional feasibility. The discussion is summarized in Table 13.3, and then discussed in greater depth in the text. As is the case with national policies, international agreements are instruments that can be designed well or poorly and be stringent or lax, binding or non-binding, or politically attractive or unattractive.

Table 13.3: Assessment of international agreements on climate change.[45]

Approach

Environmental effectiveness

Cost-effectiveness

Meets distributional considerations

Institutional feasibility

National emission targets and international emission trading (including offsets)

Depends on participation and compliance.

Decreases with limited participation and reduced gas and sector coverage.